Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 56:3

"What time I am afraid, I will put my trust in thee." — Psalms 56:3 (ASV)

What time I am afraid - literally, “the day I am afraid.” David did not hesitate to admit that there were times when he was afraid. He saw himself to be in danger, and he had apprehensions as to the result. There is a natural fear of danger and of death; a fear implanted in us:

• To make us cautious, and
• To induce us to put our trust in God as a Preserver and Friend.

Our very nature—our physical constitution—is full of arrangements most skillfully adjusted, and most wisely planted there, to lead us to God as our Protector. Fear is one of these things, designed to make us feel that we need a God, and to lead us to Him when we realize that we have no power to save ourselves from impending dangers.

I will trust in thee - As One who is able to save, and One who will order all things as they should be ordered. It is only this that can make the mind calm in the midst of danger:

• The feeling that God can protect us and save us from danger, and that He will protect us if He sees fit;
• The feeling that whatever may be the result, whether life or death, it will be such as God sees to be best—if life, that we may be useful and glorify His name still on the earth; if death, that it will occur not because He did not have power to interpose and save, but because there were good and sufficient reasons why He should not put forth His power on that occasion and rescue us.

Of this we may be, however, assured: that God has power to deliver us always, and that if we are not delivered from calamity, it is not because He is inattentive or lacks power.

And of this higher truth we may also always be assured: that He has power to save us from that which we have most occasion to fear—a dreadful hell.

It is a good maxim with which to go into a world of danger; a good maxim to go to sea with; a good maxim in a storm; a good maxim when in danger on land; a good maxim when we are sick; a good maxim when we think of death and the judgment—What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.